I Thought That I Was Stronger
by Halcyon.Promise
Summary: Actions and consequences are rarely as straightforward as they seem. Left to face the reality of a situation where people were hurt as a result of poor decisions, Eric finds the woman he's interested in uncharacteristically impacted. In her grief and his frustration, he finds a quiet moment that does what nothing else could: assuage the guilt for the choices he's made.


**A/N: Sort of angsty, sort of sweet. Happy Valentines Day? Playing with a different style of writing so it might be a little clumsy at times. This one-shot takes place within the realm of a larger sequence of events in my mind that may eventually turn into a full-length story. You can find me on tumblr under the username paradigmflaws. I'm accepting prompts and requests.  
**

The clock on the wall of Dauntless' cafeteria blazed red through the dim of the hour. Time had converged into that time where no one knew with certainty if it were more accurate to call it night or morning. The conventional world was asleep - but then, Dauntless had never even bothered to lay claim to the concept.

Footsteps echoed through the compound. It had been a sleepless night. Members of a patrol unit had been trickling back for hours. Sometimes they came individually, one by one. Other times they arrived in clusters, in twos or threes, supporting a faction member. It was those moments that it was most dire. The infirmary was bustling. Common attention was offset for the catastrophic. Stitches could wait. Trickling cuts and scrapes could be tended to individually.

Gaping wounds, though, blood seeping out too quickly to stop, the bones that ruptured through vital organs, that had torn through skin - it was too much. Too much, simply too much.

And still they came in - living and dying as chance dictated. They came until they didn't, and it was in that silence, and in that stillness, that she had found herself in the unsettling quiet of the infirmary at night. The wounded who were kept overnight made quiet sounds in their sleep. A cough here, a wheeze there. Occasionally a hiss or a groan as they moved in a way they shouldn't. It was sounds of the oblivious, of those who had managed to escape their reality.

Confronted with that same reality, she shivered. Cold had chased its way into her bones. Grief gnawed at her stomach, choking her into nausea that she refused to act upon.

Removed were the bodies of those who hadn't survived. Even though they were gone, though, she couldn't erase the sight from her mind.

It was with profound relief that she found herself freed from her obligation of staying there. Fleeing from the infirmary, normally a place of quiet solace, she sought out the sounds of Dauntless. The dull roar of the water in the chasm. Footsteps, scuffling, the horseplay that never seemed to cease even in the wake of catastrophe. She clenched her jaw, ducking past Dauntless members on the path.

They paused in her wake.

She couldn't have known how she looked. Her skin had been lightened to an unnatural pallor, circles around her eyes bruises of fatigue and grief. A smear of brownish red flaked off of her cheek. It wasn't a straight line, though. A tear had smudged it, wiped part of it away.

Fisting her hands to prevent them from trembling, she made her way to the cafeteria. It was hours before breakfast preparation would occur. Sitting on the edge of one of the tables, she leaned back on her hands. Staring blankly at the clock, she went down the list of the Dauntless members who had gone out today.

There was a list of the ones who would never go out again.

But shortest of all was the list of those that had gone out and were yet to return. In the wake of the catastrophe, others had gone out, to retrieve their faction members, to assess the situation, to complete the mission - to follow orders. Orders that had gotten some of them killed.

She laid down on the table, wrapping her arms about her midriff. It seemed as if it might be the only thing keeping her from shaking to pieces. With only the red illumination from the clock in the large room, the majority of the space was dark, dim and impassible.

It was safe.

And in the isolation of the lonely hours of the early morning, wrapped in darkness, she was prostrated by grief. Silent tears tracked down her cheeks. In this way, she slipped off to the bliss and the ignorance of sleep. Supine atop the table, sleep was the only relief that could be granted to her.

Time passed. Minutes or hours mattered little in the pitch black of the underground components of the compound. Footsteps were still scarce, shuffling over rock in a dragging fatigue. Still, occasionally voices rolled through the halls.

"That's not good enough," a sharp tenor snapped. It seemed prepared to continue before it was cut off by a deeper tone. "I know, Eric. I know."

Max and Eric made their way down the stairs from the upper level of the cafeteria. Booted feet rattled on the metal and on any other day, it would have been a fair assumption that it would have woken the dead. Lights flickered on in their wake.

Still, Eric pressed on. "Don't let it happen again. It was a mistake we can't afford."

Any further conversation was abruptly truncated as they hit the stone floor. The lights overhead cast the figure laying prone on the table in sharp relief. Eric's eyes narrowed. "What is she doing here?"

A heavy sigh. "She's sleeping, Eric. It's not as if-" "What," Eric cut him off. "As if there are things no one else should hear?"

Finally Max seemed to have had enough. "She was on shift in the infirmary through all this shit. Adam was one of the ones we lost, if you cared to notice."

There was a fractional softening. The sound of a hand roughly being scrubbed along hair buzzed short. "Well, shit." His voice was lower, softer, edged with something that trod dangerously close to sentiment.

Eric paced closer to the table. Under the brightening lights of the cafeteria, her pallor only became more evident. Dried tear-tracks marked her cheeks. Instead of vivid, vibrantly alive, the woman lost in repose was a construct of grief. Pale and shattered, as if one hard step would grind her underfoot to dust, and she would be blown away with the wind.

"Shit," he echoed again.

A fraction of hesitation. His hand lingered over her shoulder. Finally, it dropped to rest over her collarbone. The scooped neck of her shirt allowed his palm to come into contact with skin. It was ice cold.

She didn't stir. Not even when the touch tightened, closing into a squeeze, jostling her slightly.

Eric sighed. Stepping closer to the edge of the table, he crouched down slightly. His hand moved, curling carefully around the backs of her shoulders. His other arm wrapped around her knees and with an effortlessness that bespoke both of his musculature and her own slight figure, lifted her from the table.

He paused. It was only a moment, and Eric resolved it quickly as he drew her closer to his chest as he turned to face Max. "I'm going to wash this shit off. I'll go and check with Jeanine later."

It seemed like the Dauntless leader had every intention of leaving the other behind. He only hesitated in his departure as Max cleared his throat.

"And her?" He had asked it pointedly, his dark eyes staring acrimoniously at the younger man.

Eric looked down again. Her arms had folded into her lap as he had lifted her, had turned her cheek against his chest as he curled her closer to him. His jaw clenched. "Doesn't matter to you," he replied at last, his voice coolly censorious.

"Seems a bit suspect that Adam died in all of this, don't you think?" Max didn't seem inclined to let it go.

Eric, however, was done. He was moving towards the door, not bothering to look at the older Dauntless leader as he passed. "Shitty luck, man."

As he left Max to the brightly lit cafeteria, he could hear the incredulous scoff. "Yeah," Max echoed. "Shitty luck." His lack of belief didn't bother Eric. In the dimness of the corridor, he looked back down at her. She seemed so small in his arms.

She had lost the vivacity that her waking hours provided. The vibrancy, the determination that allowed her to fill up a room, it had all ebbed away in sleep. No, Eric thought, correct himself as he went. Not to sleep - to grief. It was loss that chewed away at her, stealing bits and pieces of her soul at a time until she was left like this.

Doesn't matter, Eric repeated. Carefully shifting her weight in his arms, he brought her higher up against his chest. She stirred slightly at the motion, a hand resting on his shoulder.

His breath caught, and he cursed himself for it. Such a small thing shouldn't mean shit. Still, Eric found that he couldn't help himself. "It'll be alright," he murmured lowly, his hold tightening fractionally.

Eric leaned down, his lips gently pressing a kiss against her forehead. He resettled her, her head lolling against his shoulder and Eric could feel the warm puffs of air from her lips brush against his neck. "It's gonna be okay."


End file.
